NO-CORE blog

I caught this super-cold and super-booked show at the Silent Barn Friday evening. I saw everyone at the upstairs show, but missed a bunch of the downstairs going-ons unfortunately.

keeping warm at Silent Barn

Did I mention it was cold? I guess the Silent Barn crew is living without heat this winter. Hardcore. Above you see Neg-Fi and Doldrums watching another act and trying to keep warm.

Neg-Fi at Silent Barn

Neg-Fi did their tight and punctual No Wave two-step thing. Got the crowd moving without a single drumbeat.

unknown band in Silent Barn basement

Then I headed downstairs to see what was going on at the more avant/weird-noise show. This band played, and it sounded pretty awesome when they actually played and weren’t just chatting with their 5 friends who were there. I know that seems like the natural thing to do when you feel like your 5 friends are the only ones paying attention, but hey, that’s why I always advocate selling it like you’re playing for thousands no matter what. Because maybe that kid in the back corner is actually really, really into it despite appearances and would have been your fan for life until you let the song trail off and started rambling… Also not into the hunched over facing away from any audience style. But like I said, the sounds were great. Rhythmic mechanical-death-throes noises.

Doldrums at Silent Barn

Up next was Doldrums (who came down from Canada) which started out as some serious post-Narwhalz/Kyle H Mabson thing. Pop song sampling interspersed with short bursts of noises, heckler-baiting, and stand-up comedy. It went on like this for the bulk of their time and was pretty entertaining. Not quite on Narwhalz’ level but still. Then at the very end the Doldrums dude decided to play a couple of songs.

Doldrums encore

The drummer only decided to play after the crowd demanded one more song, and this was by far the highlight. Hard to believe they almost ended without playing this, after setting up the drums at the beginning and all. Melodic but noisy but spooky but edgy. Real nice, and it doubled my positive impression of them.

Cat with Nat Roe at Silent Barn

Back downstairs, this performance was going on. Nat Roe lured a couple of the silent Barn resident cats down with the promise of food and then tested their determination with escalating noise, music, and a vacuum cleaner. Honestly, I’ve got a soft spot for animals and felt kind of bad for the cats here, though they certainly weren’t harmed and were free to leave the scene at any time. I’m pretty impressed with that cat’s willingness to continue finishing its meal even when the vacuum cleaner started up – most household pets’ most-hated appliance.

Wharton Tiers Ensemble at Silent Barn

Wharton Tiers is a long-time NYC music dude, best-known for recording some pretty legendary bands and albums. Here he plays drums along with a bassist, saxophonist, and FIVE guitarists. I don’t know if the knowledge of Mr. Tiers’ CV colored my impression, but this came across to me as a totally classic NYC-flavored experience, part Branca/Live Skull/Sonic Youth, part Television/New York Dolls.

Sediment Club at Silent Barn

I think The Sediment Club are one of my favorite bands going right now, doing a fully old-school No Wave, but also fully vital and now-sounding thing. Some of the songs come out swinging with a double-time Contortions attack, others have a more slow-burn approach. But always the rhythm section is tight, the keyboard sounds kinda messed up, and singer/guitarist Austin plays guitar exactly like any dedicated No Waver would: whammy bar in hand, slide on finger, and treble turned up.

The Sediment Club in contact mic madness

The Sediment Club "No More Earth"

The last act of the night (although I lost track of what was going on downstairs) was Knife City, an all-out chiptune dance attack. Here’s a video of Knife City’s hands and his biggest fan’s feet.

I’m down in Miami at the International Noise Conference, and some more photos and video will follow, but as a little sneak preview, here’s the Laundryroom Squelchers set from Thursday night, Feb. 11th. This is shot in portrait format so you may want to go fullscreen for viewing. I think the David Lynch style lighting helps capture the madness.

I think I promised some photos from this show quite a while ago. (click for slightly bigger files) The Silent Barn is a DIY venue in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and the closest thing you’re going to get to a house show around here. First up, Hot Guts play some hi-NRG garage rock through gobs of effects. It actually sounds kind of like this image:

Hot Guts at Silent Barn

Gay Beast played in the middle and I think I’ve raved about them enough, right? It’s twice as great live as on record. Brain-melting nu-math no-wave.

Gay Beast at Silent Barn 1

Gay Beast at Silent Barn 2

Satanized closed things out with an intense and sweaty set. They play harsh math/noise-rock, often leaning toward the technical. This night things leaned toward the heavy and pounding.

Satanized at Silent Barn 1

Satanized at Silent Barn 2

Satanized at Silent Barn 3

Awesome. Sorry about the slow blogging, but things will pick up here. And hey, if anyone thinks there is a Brooklyn show that I really shouldn’t miss, be sure to shoot me an email!

And I’m not even kidding. The foreshadowed event also marks the first time that someone has emailed me asking that I blog about a show! I have no idea if that was a widely spammed request, but strangely, I think they hit their mark here. In particular, fans of heavy drone/psych/ambient will want to mark their calendars.

You read that small print correctly. This will be an attempt to break the world record for largest msuical saw ensemble. And it takes place inside a church. I think you can be guaranteed that this will sound AWESOME. Unfortunately they’ll be pairing the saws with a bunch of normal musical instruments, but I still bet the world record group would sound mighty cool.

In fact, I think that any readers of this blog would agree that this event blows the competition clean out of the water. That would be the Siren Music Fest at Coney Island, which largely features a line-up of tame indie rock acts (well, I’ve heard that Monotonix rocks) and also takes place this Saturday. Yawn.

Hit up their website for more info. I really, really hope it’s recorded.

http://www.musicalsawfestival.org/

I’m not even going to attempt a proper “review” of this event. Not only would it inevitably overlook the majority of amazing acts, it would almost seem to contradict the spirit of this gathering. Each year, freak-noise godfather Rat Bastard puts on this 3-day festival in his hometown of Miami. No one is charged a cent, no one is payed a cent. By design, it is a showcase of bands who love making noise and acting like freaks for the pure love of it. There are really no genre restrictions and what ties all the performers together more than anything is a shared ideology.

This year may have actually been slightly less insane than last year – but you still get to see at least 30 of the best performances you’ll see all year, inside 3 days. A number of acts seem to have dropped out, including some of the heavyweights, though I didn’t really notice until I’d gotten a few nights’ sleep back at home and started to think things like “Weren’t Sword Heaven listed originally?” Perhaps the economy is to blame? I hope they (and some others who were missed) will return next year, but there was still way, way more great stuff than any one person could hope to catch. No one catches everything, except maybe Rat.

Here are some links to some INC2009 documentation that should keep you busy.

First of all, to see (almost) all the photos I took, click on this pic of some noise kids at the beach:

I also took a bunch of videos and stuck them on the NO-CORE YOUTUBE HERE – but there are far more and better videos that Breathmint Records got and put on Vimeo!

Laundry Room Squelchers – live during International Noise Conference at Churchill’s – Miami, FL – 02-12-2009 from Breathmint on Vimeo.

Check out the rest, seriously.

There are also some great photos on Flickr from “That Bad Larry” like this one of Head Molt killing it:

Some more great ones from “Gold Pony” like this one of Noumena:

And perhaps best of all, the dudes who do Zradio (probably the best podcast and radio show in existence right now) were there and recorded a whole bunch of acts. When they got home they assembled a 3-hour podcast of what they got, which sounds great and provides a nice cross-section of the styles. (maybe leaning a bit toward the noise-rock?) The first recording, of Undrskor, sets the mood nicely and demonstrates what happens if you choose to let Nondor be your drummer. GO HERE TO DOWNLOAD IT. Notice also that the previous episode has a bunch of recordings from the Philadelphia pre-INC show.

Got more? Add a comment and share your link!

I am at the International Noise Conference in Miami right now. A more detailed write-up will follow, but I will share some photos and videos as I upload them. More photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/nocore and more videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/xNOCOREx

I’ve had a few run-ins with this band Buck Gooter. For some reason I can’t help but think of them as “outsider artists” (which should be taken as a compliment) even if they do know all about noise bands and punk rock. Maybe it’s the band name which conjures a hillbilly/redneck vibe, or the weird mix of protest rock with noise & drum machines, or the fact that the band members are a generation apart, or that they live out in rural Virginia.

Anyway, even though they have the same internet access we all do, and many of the same sources of inspiration, somehow their interpretation of it comes out very wrong (which is also a compliment).So maybe this will help clarify things: “What Da Hell?” a short Buck Gooter documentary, available in 2 parts on YouTube. I wish this explored the band members’ personal lives a little more, which I think would add some insight into where they’re coming from, but this still paints an interesting picture. Enjoy!

PART 1:

PART 2:

http://buckgooter.tk/

So I went to the recent Teenage Jesus & the Jerks reunion show at the Knitting Factory. I know, I was fully expecting that I might be paying $25 for 10 minutes (or less?) of disappointment. But heck, I went to the Contortions reunion show and it turned out to be pretty damn good. Turns out this show was pretty damn good too. I’d even say really good.

This show was celebrating the release of some No-Wave Book. I thought I already knew about this book, which came out a few months back, but it turns out this is ANOTHER No-Wave book. I have no idea why 2 different books came out at the same time, or how exactly they differ, but maybe once I get some extra money and buy them both I can do a compare and contrast book review for everyone. I’m going to assume that any readers of this are familiar with the original No-Wave bands, and if you’re not, well there are now TWO books on the subject which you could refer to.

The opening band was a group of original No-Wavers called Information who, I’ll be honest, wasn’t familiar to me. Apparently Information was a short-lived group which played alongside all the No New York bands. Members were in several other bands and Informationeers Chris Nelson and Philip Dray formed The Scene is Now, a band which has been in existence ever since. (This article tells some of the story) They sounded fantastic, absolutely nailing that rough/complex, untrained/brilliant dichotomy that sounds exactly like what you’d hope to hear at a No-Wave reunion show. Drums that thump right along with guitars doing things that shouldn’t go together but sound amazing together anyway, and hey, that exact electric organ (?) sound from the Contortions record.

There were lots of older folks in the audience, fans and friends from the original days it seemed. Then some music nerds and most heartening of all, some younger kids, including some cool dudes rocking flannel and the classic Mudhoney Big Muff T-shirt. The kids are alright! Very few hipster 20-somethings, but you know, I was at the early show (8:00) and maybe the scene was different at the 11:00 show.

Teenage Jesus and The Jerks go on at 9:30 sharp. As it turns out, this performance was pretty much everything you could have wanted. Lydia Lunch was a fireball of spite, the guitar sound was just as shrill and dissonant as it should be, and I’m pretty sure they played every single song. (Except for the early ones with James Chance. I suppose you could have wanted a guest appearance by him too, but no such luck.) The drummer, Jim Sclavunos (who originally played bass with the band), and Thurston Moore who was filling in on bass (of course?) tried very hard to stand perfectly still with permanent scowls on their faces throughout the set.

I say “tried” because while all the No-Wave hate was in place, it was clear that tonight it was all in good fun. The “hecklers” in the audience were in on it and laughed and cheered at Ms. Lunch’s comebacks. Sample: “Fuck you!” LL: “You’d like to fuck me but you STILL couldn’t afford it.” TJ&J were known for their brief sets and military-like discipline. When the band were a slight bit off on the beginning of a song it was immediately halted and Lydia shouted “Again!” When the song was cut short a third time and she simply shot a deathly glare at Thurston, he and Mr. Sclavunos couldn’t quite suppress their grins. When Thurston’s guitar strap broke later on, Lydia said “This is what happens when we let a member of Sonic Youth join the band. Fumble!” But then even she cracked under the good vibes and had to say, although in a sarcastic tone “No… I love Sonic Youth.”

Despite a closing comment of “Less is more, get over it,” I have actually seen many much shorter sets in recent days. I guess the standards have changed since ’78 thanks to groups like Cock ESP and the whole International Noise Conference scene, and of course Teenage Jesus in the first place. No complaints though, TJ&J still wrapped up in 30 minutes max, way before anyone could get bored.

photos by Georgia Kral

You hear a lot of pretentious B.S. about bands trying to “break down boundaries” or undermine the “performer/audience relationship” or some such thing. But I have only seen one band actually achieve these things, and they didn’t do it by handing out xeroxed manifestos or putting on an “in your face” performance art piece. They could do this because they live and breathe music. It’s in their flesh and bones and blood, not in an art-school thesis paper. This is a review of possibly the best show I’ve ever seen.

I was invited to come play this show a few years back at the apartment of one of the Organ Donors, actually in the basement of a rowhouse-style rental. It’s a typical house show with a reasonably enthusiastic audience. Until it’s time for the Organ Donors to play. The Organ Donors started out, I guess, as a recording project, doing movie soundtrack type music. Then they booked a live show and decided that they would write all new material that would be exciting to play live and that formed the core of their live set from that point forward. The line-up, as I usually saw it during this incarnation, had one organ/keyboard, 1 drum kit, and 2 vocalists, although I’ve also seen them with 2 drum kits and on this night they had a very confused looking guitarist who I think got drafted into the band just that day.

The band playing before the Organ Donors had finished and people in the basement started asking, “Where are the Organ Donors?” “I think they’re upstairs.” I head upstairs to find that they are gathered around the piano with a small group of people, pounding out songs with everyone clapping and singing along. “It’s time for you to play,” several people are telling them so down the stairs they march, still singing and clapping, with the audience in tow. They don’t stop playing as they set up and they never really start, they just plug things in and it suddenly gets louder.

The Organ Donors’ 2 vocalists have a certain approach. They don’t stay on the stage. They don’t care much if the microphones stay plugged in. In fact, at one show I saw them toss the microphones away on the very first note. Organ Donors songs have very simple, catchy sing-alongs, made of “WHOOO”s or simple chants. The vocalists are really just cheerleaders, and as soon as things get plugged in this night they charge into the crowd singing these parts, microphone-less, from the back of the room, or curled up in fetal position in the corner, or just amidst the audience. Since they’re not on the stage and don’t have microphones, they are in no special position, and since everyone can figure out the “words” immediately, everyone there can just as easily be the singer. Tonight this really comes true. Everyone sings. There is just the band and one big chorus of people dancing and singing.

One song overlaps another. Usually the audience-chorus won’t let a song end and the instrument players have to start the next song over the top of them. Then the organist, Ari, takes off into the dancing crowd. Abe, one of the vocalists, leans over the organ and plays his parts. Then he’s gone and someone I’ve never seen is playing. The guitarist, who as I said probably got drafted into the band that day, is replaced by someone else. People have discovered that they can drum along on the pipes and ducts in addition to clapping. Very shortly I can’t follow where the band members have gone, but somehow, miraculously, whoever touches an instrument seems to know how to play these songs. The stage area has dissolved. The band has dissolved.

Eventually, someone comes rushing down the stairs into the fray shouting that everyone has to stop playing. The neighbor is out on the lawn, saying something like she’ll call the police and we’re waking up her baby. The show hasn’t stopped though, people are still clapping and singing. In the midst of this some band members are shouting “unplug everything” but the actual instruments have become unimportant anyway. The walls and pipes and floor have become the drums and everyone knows the songs at this point. Some people are singing the organ parts, and other people the vocal parts. The singing and drumming and dancing goes on for another 20 minutes or more before gradually settling down into a happy chatting and hugging afterglow. There is no more band to clap for so everyone just claps for themselves. No one says “We have CDs for sale” or “We were the Organ Donors.” We ALL were the Organ Donors.

Update: The Organ Donors have since reincarnated themselves as a group which plays live songs in a manner closer to their original intentions. Soundtrack-like, story-telling songs which are generally tense and subtle and maybe fall somewhere between Ennio Morricone and Bob Dylan.

http://www.humanconduct.org/theorgandonors/ http://www.myspace.com/humanconductpresentsvincent